Hola podheads, âtwas a pretty action packed with really big developments. Hereâs the juicy 44th edition of the Weekly round-up.
đ¸Big money watch
Just when you thought that maybe the big money acquisitions for the year were done. Entercom, one of the biggest radio corporations in the US announced that it was acquiring podcast producer Pineapple Street Media and podcast network, Cadence13.
Entercom had already acquired a 45% stake in Cadence13 (DGital Media) in 2017. Pineapple Street Media was founded by Jenna Weiss-Berman, former director of audio at Buzzfeed and Max Linsky, co-founder of Longform. Post the acquisition, Pineapple Street Media will be a division of RADIO.COM and be renamed as Pineapple Street Studios.
Although the size of the deals weren't disclosed, WSJ put it at:
The Pineapple deal is valued at $18 million, according to a person familiar with the matter, while the Cadence deal values the company at nearly $50 million, according to a person familiar with that transaction.
Another interesting tidbit from the WSJ piece:
Combined revenue for Pineapple and Cadence13 over the past 12 months was $40 million, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Entercom isn't the first radio giant to bet on podcasts. Late last year, iHeartMedia acquired Stuff Media.
Entercom owns more than 235 radio stations across the US that reach 170 million listeners each month. This deal clearly sets it up to compete with iHeartMedia, one of the biggest names in radio. Ashely Carman/The Verge
From this Digiday piece:
Entercom plans to use a mixture of established methods, such as promotions inside of other podcasts and short runs of exclusivity, and more unproven ones, such as broadcasts of slimmed-down, 15-minute versions of podcasts that will air on terrestrial radio, to promote the podcasts. Over time, it hopes to turn Radio.com, its digital portal and mobile app, a hub for windowing shows and for product experiments designed to fix this issue.
And obviously, you cannot write anything about consolidation in podcastland without mentioning the acquisition spree of Spotify, which acquired Gimlet, Anchor, and Parcast this year. Kinda seems obvious for old school radio giants to bet on podcasts, given that itâs the new shiny object. But what does this mean for the entire podcasting industry as a whole? Weâll just have to wait and see.
Courtship
iHeartMedia which just emerged from a bruising bankruptcy saga is increasing itâs focus on podcasts. The radio giant announced plans to launch its podcasts in Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, French and German languages by early next year.
From the press release:
âOur goal as the audio leader is to deliver exceptional content to listeners anywhere and everywhere they are, in the way theyâd like to hear it,â said Conal Byrne, President of the iHeartPodcast Network. âBy expanding some of our most popular podcast content into new languages, we see a major opportunity to introduce podcast listening at scale to whole new audiences abroad. What has always set podcasting apart is the engagement of the audiences â the superfans. So it makes sense to engage international audiences further and to super-serve them with content in their own languages to build their relationship with the content. Iâm looking forward to seeing how international audiences respond to shows like âStuff You Should Knowâ in their own languages â shows which have amassed unbelievable fanbases in the U.S.â
iHeart also announced âSunday Night Podcasts.â
Sunday Night Podcasts will air the most popular and highly-anticipated podcasts from the iHeartPodcast Network across multiple genres, including comedy, true crime, business, history, technology, culture and more, on hundreds of iHeartMedia broadcast stations â enabling these podcasts to reach millions of new listeners. - Press Release Â
This comes on the heels of Wonderyâs announcement to launch its podcasts in seven non-English speaking markets.
Front and center
Google took another big step in making audio a âfirst-class citizen.â If you havenât noticed already, Google has started surfacing individual podcast episodes in search results.
Also:
As part of our work to help podcasters build audiences and grow their businesses, weâll soon add the ability for publishers to specify where you can listen to their podcasts, such as other apps or websites. This means youâll be able to discover podcasts that may be exclusively available by purchase or subscription.
Nick Quah made a rather prescient observation:
Anyway, the introduction of this feature also yields other potential complexities, mostly associated with the everyday doldrums of SEO management. In particular, this is probably going to change how people think about naming their shows, as they now operate within a universe that contains a powerful search engine with robust rules.
Will there be will be Bangladeshi teenagers on Fiver promising better search results for podcasts?
Also Read: Google will start surfacing individual podcast episodes in search results - Ashley Carman/The Verge
đ°Moolah watch
Glow, a platform that helps podcasters monetize through premium content launched in public beta in June raised a $2.3 million seed round led by Greycroft. Norwest Venture Partners, PSL Ventures, Jeffrey Katzenbergâs WndrCo, Revolutionâs Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Rapper Nas and Electronic Arts CTO Ken Moss participated in the round.
âOur first hire after this funding round will be someone focused on podcast success,â Valliani said. âOf course, weâre going to build the product [but weâre] doubling down on this market; we better make sure that [podcasters] are prepared to launch programs that are as successful as possible.â - TechCrunch
Spotify watch
Spotify announced its quarterly a while ago and here are the numbers.
Total subscribers stood at 232 million vs. analyst expectations of 242 million.
Our podcast audience grew more than 50% Q/Q and has nearly doubled since the start of the year.
Bytes
Luminaryâs podcast experiment continues after controversial launch - Jill Duff/The Daily Dot
Inside Earios, the first all-female podcast network - Halley Bondy/NBC
The âOpen Downloadsâ suggested standard for podcast metrics: good or bad? - James Cridland
Sony Musicâs Podcast JV, Three Uncanny Four Productions, Makes Key Hires Ahead of Planned 2020 Debut - Todd Spangler/Variety
Monocle is launching a new daily podcast tiled âThe Monocle Minuteâ.
Mediawatch
Some good news in an otherwise dreary media landscape. The Guardian and The New York Times have good news. - Neiman Lab
Good news from big newspapers: The New York Times now has 3.78 million digital subscribers, the company said in its second-quarter earnings report released Wednesday, while The Guardian confirmed that it broke even in 2018 for the first time in years and also broke out its international digital revenue for the first time.
SmartNews, the news aggregator app from Japan has hit a $1 billion valuation. - Sara Fischer/Axios
It's notable that in today's bleak news market where U.S. tech giants like Google and Facebook dominate most news referral traffic online, a Japanese-based firm has been able to gain traction. SmartNews is one of the few news-related startups to achieve "unicorn" status, or a valuation of over $1 billion, in years.